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Pluribus: A Modern Take on Invasion of the Body Snatchers
- myra dodd
- 19 hours ago
- 4 min read
I had a lot of thoughts bouncing around my brain after watching the first two episodes of the new Vince Gilligan show and I can't help but think it's about AI.
This past week the first two episodes of Vince GIlligan's new sci-fi thriller, Pluribus hit streaming to overwhelming praise. Many were calling it the best TV pilot in years. Unfortunately, I hardly care about that seeing as I haven't watched either Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul. However, all it took was one comparison to the Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and I was in.
Pluribus is a far cry from the 70s adaptation that feels riddled with critiques on mass society and an overall distrust in authority. Even farther still from the original anti-communist 50s adaptation. (There is also a 2007 adaptation starring Nicole Kidman that is way better than it has any right to be.) In many ways Pluribus feels like a modern take on this story while turning it all on its head. The typical format for one of these films goes as follows: A protagonist starts to realize that something is wrong with the people around them, they confide in other characters who are experiencing the same thing, there is a slow decent into paranoia as everyone around them is transformed into some kind of emotionless husk, the protagonist tries their best to resist and hide from the transformed in an attempt to by time for a cure. Whether they succeed or not depends on the adaptation. The Pluribus pilot goes from 0 to 100 extremely quickly. The world is taken over before Carol can even think to do anything about it and she is left sitting in the aftermath having lost everything. Entirely alone.
Immediately my mind was racing as to what this interpretation could be about. The most obvious answer that a lot of people have seemed to come to is depression. Not unreasonably so, a lot of the shows marketing, including its tagline, are centered around happiness. Carol is already branded as "the most miserable person on earth." She is facing complete isolation, everyone around her is trying to be helpful but it just doesn't feel right and anytime she tries to have a genuine conversation, her emotions end up hurting others. No one around her can truly understand her and this sends her spiraling.
I find this all compelling but couldn't help feeling like there was more to it. The farther I got into the second episode, the more uneasy I began to feel. A world devoid of human individuality and emotion felt familiar. For me at least, Pluribus is mirroring a society (not too far from our own) where AI is everywhere.
We live in an era where AI is inescapable and sometimes it feels like we're on the grasp of losing a lot of what has always been human. In Pluribus everyone on earth has been replaced by a version of themselves that is linked with all human consciousness. They have little to no agency, will do whatever you want them to, and are made to help the remaining humans. They can answer any question, perform any task, have access to all of the knowledge on earth and yet they can’t handle any human emotion. They aren't built to.
Normally in this type of story the main characters are caught up in trying to find a cure, preserving humanity, and working together as a species. This is what Carol expects when she meets up with the other remaining humans. When she meets up with the remaining English-speaking humans, they are almost all dismissive to her plight. They have already seemed to have accepted the new workings of the world despite the death of millions and the odd new quirks of their family members. The most frustrating part as a viewer is that Carol is such a sympathetic character and yet her feelings are completely dismissed. We just watched her entire world fall apart and everyone is acting like she is the insane one. It is so frustrating to watch as the few people that Carol could possibly connect to share wildly different mindsets.
What is so interesting about this subversion is we get to consider this from the other perspective. The latter half of the second episode becomes a fight between Carol and Laxmi who have directly opposing opinions on the situation. Laxmi and the rest of the humans insist that their family members remain themselves and are intent on joining them as soon as they can. Cracks to Laxmi's resolve begin to show when Carol asks her child complicated medical questions and is utterly disturbed when he can answer. Laxmi challenges Carol back, forcing Carol (and us) to consider them as human for the first time. Like Carol, I was so caught up in the typical alien invasion whirlwind that I spared little thought to how these new people felt. After all they are now the majority of the earth. This forced Carol (and I) to take a deeper look at who these people are. Curiously enough, even within the hive mind there seems to be some semblance of individuality.
Normally how these stories go is that individuality, love and hate are all seen as so authentically human that taking that away means the end of everything and therefore is inherently a bad thing. In Pluribus they've already commented on how this isn't a movie. I really have no idea where it could go and I'm ready to be blown away.
I didn't know while watching, but since the release Vince Gilligan has made multiple statements declaring his hate for generative AI calling it a "plagiarism machine." The credits of Pluribus even include a disclaimer declaring that the work was made entirely by humans. In the same interview Gilligan said “We’re all telling stories. We’re telling the stories to each other of who we are. We’re listening to stories from people we love and people we hate, and they’re, all of them, important.” I will say I don't think it's a coincidence that Carol is an author.
This is being written with only the first two episodes out so ignore this if it ends up being entirely wrong in a few weeks. It's only a theory.
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